Russian Energy Report, 10 pictures

[wooferhound]

My wife and me went on a vacation to Saint Petersburg, Russia. We were there for 2 weeks and 2 days in the middle of May This year 2005. My wife was born in Saint Petersburg and lived there till 2000 when she moved to the USA. Our Vacation was to visit Her family and friends which she had not seen for 5 years. In this picture is from left to right: Wife & Me, 2 daughters Irena & Katia. Little Going Away party featuring Vodka.

We were staying with my wifes daughters in thier Flat, it's like an apartment but you own it. The heating for the Flat was a central boiler system with steam radiator heat in each Flat. There is no control over this heat in the Flat, No thermostat or valves or nothing. To adjust the heat you open enough windows till enough heat goes out and becomes a comfortable temperature inside. The gas bill is split equally between all of the residents in the Building. It's a five story building with no elevator and were are on the 5th floor. There are at least 60 two bedroom apartments in there. Here is a picture of the building we were in. I was in the tower, in the flat with the balconys on it.

The daughters were using 25 watt bulbs in most of the Flat to save money. While we were out shopping one day I saw some 18 watt Compact Fluorescent lightbulbs and wanted to buy 2 bulbs for them so we could see at night and still save power. They did not like the idea of buying a $3 bulb when a 25 cent bulb was right next to it. I ended up buying 2 of them and they were very happy about the light and the watts. Hotwater was provided by a very old On Demand gas hotwater heater. All the markings on the unit have been washed away from years of cleaning. Probably original equipment for the building which was built in 1955. Still works pretty good though.

Transportation was geared to the masses. You could get anywhere very easy and cheap without a car through a combination of Taxies, Buses, Trains and Subways. Everything but the taxies were electric. Almost all of the wider roads had railroad tracks inbedded in them and short electric trains would be travaling on them constantly. It was very interesting how these trains interacted with cars on the roads.

Most of the buses were electric too. I was totaly amazed that this system worked. How the electrodes stayed in contact with the wires, and how the wires did not short circuit at the intersections where they all crossed. The buses also had interaction problems with car traffic. This picture and the train in the last was taken from right off the balcony of our Flat.

I got to ride on an electric bus on several occasions, not so loud and smooth acceleration. It was quite crouded though. I thought it was interesting the the motor sounded exactly like the brakes, possably using the motor as the brake. Plus sometimes there was an air compressor running to power the airbrakes when completely stopped. Also surprised that you cant hear the electrodes sliding on the wires above.

All over the city were these large smokestacks. When it's cold these things are blowing grey smoke continuously. I'm not sure what these places were for but Would think that it's related to heat in the winter. Saint Petersburg is up at the same latitude as Alaska, so the winters can get bitterly cold.

There is a chance that those factories were making Electricity. If they were then it would have been transported around the city on power lines like these. I was noting that they were very rusty and unkept. Trees growing up all along the lines. During my stay a city wide Blackout of Moscow was in the news. Something about an explosion and a fire at one Substation had a domino effect and took out most of the cities power for a coupla days. Then news that I was reading on the internet said that the entire electric infrastructure of Russia is too old outdated and needs a complete overhaul.

I had been looking around for 2 weeks and I had'nt seen anything at all that looks like it was made to catch the wind (except flags), and not one single solar cell to be seen. Then we got about 75 miles out of town and BANG, There it was, a 12 foot wind generator about 40 feet high at a residence. No wind today so it was not spinning. It was not a style of genny that I had seen before, but I could tell it was factory made. Tried to get a picture of it but it was on the otherside of the car and I was trying to make the photo "blind" over the roof. In the picture it looks like it's spinning but I don't think so. The tail comes out and up at a 45 degree angle for a long distance and I think the tail wing is actually behind the tree here. Also the tower was 300 meters behind the fence, it is not growing out of the post like it looks.

Our trip out of town took us to Estonia, Way out in the country where a tourist has no interest. I'm sure that few Americans had visited this small town that we went to. This Church was so cool to me. I took over 10 pictures of it. Enjoy, you won't see it in any brochure or internet site I bet. (except this one)

All the pictures are 640x480 so you may be able to rightclick the image and view a larger version of it.





   W o o f

[ghurd]

Very interesting!

Plumbing 'Code' must be a little lax.

G-

[jimjjnn]

Dang the trolley buses remind me of Denver,Colorado in the 1930-1955 era. The rubber-tired buses had a double trolly ,also. The old street cars were like a single railroad car on rails. They had a single trolley with a wheel that kept in contact with the overhead wire. 2 large springs kept it in contact with the wire overhead. At intersections where the cable had a break for crossing street cars, the operator had to go at a certain speed else the trolley jumped off the cable. As a kid , we used to geta free ride by pulling on the rope at the  back of the street car connected to the trolley. When the operator would go to reconnect it, we would run around to the open door and get on. We got caught a lot because there were times at night that the streetcar wasn't very full of people and the op could see he had more passengers than when he put the trolley back on the cable. Lots of sparks when we pulled the trolley as they were DC powered. Don't know the voltage. At night it was quite a show as everytime the car came to an intersection, there would be a bright flash and sometimes a big crackling sound from the trolley. They even had resistive heating at every seat was a baseboard heater. Wow! Did they ever get hot. The Denver Tramway Co had their own power plant for electricity. Big old coal burner. An example of inflation: 3 cents to ride all day if you got a transfer slip from the operator. All you had to do was put your 3 cents in the glass box and ask the op for a transfer slip.When you got on the next streetcar or bus, you asked for another transfer slip . The op always gave kids the slip tho it was against company rules. We thought it was terrible when they raised the rides to 5 cents. AHHH !! THE GOOD OLE DAYS

[Barnac]

It's always interesthing to see different culture, views and way of doing things.

Here in Quebec province, nowadays most of our electricity is from Hydro. It is used for both heating and domestic needs. I was amaze when I went to France to see that as soon as heating was involved gas was used (Hot water, kitchen range, house heating). Maybe it was like that here in big cities in the old days, but certainly not in rural areas were wood was used as the primary combustible for heating.

A friend of mine had a young girl from Germany last summer, in a school exchange program, staying at his place for the summer. His wife was complaining because she didn't flush the toilet every time she used it, even for the solid stuf. She thought it was disgusting. But the girl explained that that they were brought up this way because they have to pay for their water consumption. So they save on the water by waiting for the bowl to be filled up.

Here some people even wash their driveway using potable water. Water that has cost us a leg and an arm to treat it to make it potable. Because it's available right at the tap they just dont't think about it.

Anyway thanks for the sharing.

[hiker]

real nice......

sure can tell the oil companies arn"t in control over there...

all those elecric buses and trains would be gone..and replaced with

big old gas guzzler suvs....u think !!

[electrondady1]

thanks for the post woof, very interesting. a russian guy was on the board when you were over there, i think he said that electricity was heavily subsidised so the was little incentive for windmills.

[jomoco]

Fascinating stuff Woof!

The architecture of the buildings looks as if they were really built to last a long time. It would be interesting to know how old that church in Estonia is.

Somehow it doesn't surprize me that you somehow found a windmill in such a vast country, apparently your pen name is well deserved in that you were able sniff out what was probably the only windmill for many miles around.

Great post Woof and a beautiful and interesting family as well.

jomoco

[ghurd]

His name was Lev.

A quote about windmills...

"In Russia such designs are not popular. Electricity is very cheap. Frequently for it do not pay... I whant made windgenerator to my yacht."

G-

[JW]

Excellent write up Wolf.

 Thanks for sharing your adventure with us. Id like to visit Russia someday.

JW

[richhagen]

Very interesting stuff there Woof.  Like you, when I travel I like to look at how things are built and how things work.  I look for the differences and the similarities to what I have seen around my city.  For this reason your report is very fascinating to me.  My observations:

1. in the first picture, the chairs your mother and step daughters are sitting in are similar to vintage chairs one might find here.  The door as well.  Even the oriental rug.  My first apartment in college was like that with a central boiler.  The valves on the radiators were mostly stuck, and the control was located in a different apartment, so the only way to regulate the heat was to open windows.  Terribly inefficient.  The orange juice looks familiar, but I'm not sure what you were having there.
   
2. It looks like a reinforced concrete building, similar to what I have seen in other parts of Europe.  I'm not sure what the yellow things were around the building in the second picture.  The cable and trolley wires remind me of old photographs of Chicago showing the similar overhead wires.  Did the lightbulbs use the same Edison bases as in the U.S.?  Depending on the electric rates, I bet you'll find more compact flourescents at your step daughters flat on your next trip there.  I notice what appear to be UHF and VHF band antennas on the roof, as well as what looks like a couple of parabolics of some type mounted on a mast to the right, maybe GHz band directional antennas for some purpose or other.  I assume the structures on the roof to the right and left of the tower are for venting the chimneys from the flats.  The truck tractor looks similar to something you might find here.  
   
3. The piping for the gas to the water heater has been bent to fit, I see it has been painted, but upon looking at it I was curious as to whether they used copper, or some type of steel tubing for the supply.  It reminds me of the bosch aquastars that I have in some of my apartments.  I never put one in a bathroom though.  The Gas cock looks similar to old ones here.  I've been using ball valves as retrofits here for the past 7 years or so.  The scrub brush, scrungy and back scrubber look identical to items you could buy here as well as the shampoo bottles.  The green ones look like Garnier.  I'll bet the tub is a heavy cast iron one.  The water valves appear to be chromed brass, similar to a design found on many older homes here.  Lots of ceramic tiling.  
   
4. lots of setback for the buildings, this seems surprising for such an old city.  The vehicles look like mostly different models than I am familiar with.  There seem to be a large percentage of vans and work trucks relative to passenger car traffic.  Perhaps this is due to the mass transit systems, including the electric trolley in the photo.  There is a kiosk and lots of advertising billboards, which seem ubiquitous to most cities.  
   
5. like you I am curious as to the workings of the contact between the wires and the buses and trains.  I can't quite figure out from the pictures how it works.  The bus appears to be very old, but with an electric vehicle, it can last a very long time.  
   
6. interesting street scene as well as the bus.  Again I can't figure out the wiring, I was thinking about the difficulty in turning a corner, or crossing an intersection and maintaining contact with the wires.  Lots to look at with the vehicles, buildings and ads in the photographs.
   
7. I'm betting that that is a conventional power plant.  The instant I saw the photo, the plant reminded me of the coal fired Crawford Generating Station in Chicago which belongs to Midwest Generation, a division of Exelon.  More passenger cars in the mix here, there must not be as much public transportation around there.  I noticed the 'handicapped accessible' curb cut on the sidewalk at the corner.  They must have there own version of the ADA act there, or maybe it is for bicycles.  The street light poles are of a slightly different design than I see here.  
   
8. Although they may be old, the tower designs and the use of insulators look very similar to what you still see in use, and even current designs in many places here.  
   
9. Interesting with the tail on a 45 degree climb like that.  I think I've seen one like that before, but I can't recall where, and can't think of an advantage for it off of the top of my head other than to possibly help keep the flow lamilar off of the back of the turbine, by moving the bulk of the tail out of the path of the air that would have had a slight rotation passed on to it as it passed through the turbine.  
   
10. It looks like they are restoring or modernizing part of the facility.  The other part appears neglected in finish and maintenance.  Are those plants growing on the roof and gutters?  It must have a copper dome, but it looks a little bluish to me relative to the greenish blue hue I am used to seeing of aged copper.  I would be curious to have seen the landscaping when that church was built.  I bet it would have had an elaborate grounds.  
    
    

Anyway, those are my thoughts on your photos.  Thank you for sharing them with us.  Rich Hagen